1952 Enterprise

Unique, Low-Slung Design was Short-lived, but its Oddity Appeal Continues

Feature Article from Hemmings Motor News

There are literally thousands of custom bike builders today using cutting-edge technology to make bikes faster, more powerful, sleeker and out of the ordinary. However, custom bike building has been around for a century, and many privateers began banging away at fenders and altering engine components shortly after motorcycles were first introduced. One motorcycle company never achieved the success it hoped for, but the designer's innovation make the bike a true oddity of American motorcycle history. The 1952 Enterprise is a motorcycle you do not see very often, probably because there were so few of them built, but when you see one, you remember it.
The original design was the brainchild of Raymond Courtney. Raymond was a design engineer for Kaiser-Frazer and GM, and had knowledge of sheetmetal fabrication as well. He built his first Enterprise bike in 1935 using a Henderson four-cylinder engine. In March of 1950, Raymond started to work on his new bike in his spare time in his suburban garage on Harper Street in Pontiac, Michigan, just blocks from where the Pontiac Silverdome is now located. It took him and his son over two years to hand-form all of the fenders and side skirts and create saddlebags and running boards. The frame was made of 1-1/8-inch chromed steel tubing and designed to accept a 1940 Indian 45-cu.in., 750cc engine, but other engines of the era such as the Harley K engine could also be installed with a few modifications. The engine was electric start or kick-start and used a three-speed cable or foot-activated transmission. The 45-cu.in. Indian side-valve engine had dual exhaust, a 2-7/8-inch bore, a 3-1/2-inch stroke and a 5:1 compression ratio, and put out 40hp @ 5,000 RPM.
The handlebars were mounted to a second forward steering head, 10 inches in front of the original, and connected to the front fork by means of drag links. The front wheel had a single coil spring, with suspension travel limited by an Indian-style "snubber" ride dampener. Spark advance was on the left handlebar, with the throttle control on the right. The front fender housed a 3-gallon gas tank, which allowed the two-passenger seat to be mounted 10 inches further forward on the frame than other bikes of its day. The rear suspension was a single coil-over shock mounted from the frame to the rear fender Although ground clearance was high at 71/8 inches, the forward position of the seat allowed the bike to sit 3 inches lower than production bikes of the time and significantly lowered the bike's center of gravity. This made the bike much more manageable in tight turns. The Enterprise was 112 inches long with a 58-inch wheelbase, and weighed in at 580 pounds. It sat 28 inches high, the front fender was 26 inches wide and the passenger seating area was only 14 inches wide. Crafted rear saddlebags attached to the rear fender skirts made the rear of the bike 24 inches wide and gave the bike its riding-on-a-rocket-ship appearance. The bike used conventional motorcycle drum brakes, and fuel economy was advertised as 50 MPG on the highway.
The motorcycle was completed in time to be presented at the Detroit Motorama Show in 1952, and company brochures were distributed under the company name Courtney Enterprise.
The design captured the interest of many writers and design engineers of the early 1950s and was featured in the September 1952 Cycle Magazine and March 1953 issue of Popular Science.
One example of the Enterprise won an award at the 2008 Perikomen AMCA National Meet in Oley, Pennsylvania. Frank Westfall won for the "most unique" bike. It is said to be the only currently running example of the 1952 Enterprise. Frank's bike was also displayed at the Reading Public Museum as part of its Born to be Wild exhibit. Another generation of the Enterprise was built in 1956 using a BSA 650cc engine and transmission, but only one example was known to be built and ridden by Raymond's son. Its current whereabouts are unknown.

This article originally appeared in the June, 2009 issue of Hemmings Motor News.